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Review: Urban Decay Naked Basics Palette

This is one of my “work horse” products. It doesn’t look exciting or glamorous, but I use it at least four times per week. I LOVE this palette. Here’s why:

Packaging – Excellent
Sturdy but lightweight. The mirror is huge for the palette size. The case snaps firmly shut, and even takes a little extra pulling to open the first few times.

Price – Excellent
The math works out to a little over £3 per shadow – a bargain.

Quality – Excellent
These are soft, highly pigmented shades. Some don’t like UD matte shadows, claiming they are too dry. This isn’t a problem for me. If you are (understandably) gun-shy about this, swatch it in the store, or even dab some on your eyelid. I get that, for the price, you want it to be a palette that works with your skin.

Shadows – Amazing
Venus is a lovely shimmer highlighter with a slight yellow tint. In a pinch, I use it on my face as a highlighting powder, applying with my finger.
Foxy and W.O.S. (walk of shame) are good matte lid colors and blending shades, Foxy being warmer and W.O.S. being on the cool side. I use them both.
Naked 2 is a cooler matte tan, perfect for blending into the crease or softening darker shades. This is my favorite color in the palette.
Faint is a gorgeous matte milk chocolate brown. It blends well with most browns, and warms up the greyer ones (important for me, since I have yellow undertones – cool shades can make me look dead).
Crave is a beautiful matte black that can work alone, blended out into a grey, or crank up the depth of any shade you have. It’s also my go-to smokey eye black shade.

Less experienced/mature makeup lovers may look at this palette and go, “Boring!” But they aren’t seeing its incredible versatility and beauty. Naked 2 and Faint are great brow powders – throw on a bit of brow wax or Vaseline, gently fill in, and your brows will look shapely and neat. Taking this palette along on a trip means you already have your brow powder, highlight shade, and black in one small package.
More on versatility: Take any “scary” shade you might want to try – bright yellow, green, or red, for example. You can use Naked Basics to crank up the glam or make it wearable. One of my favorite ways to use this palette is to take a gorgeous warm shimmer shade (a Milani gel shadow, or my favorite, Coppering by MAC) and blend it into a wearable warm look with Foxy on the lid, Naked 2 in the crease, and a touch of Crave in the outer corner. Yesterday I deepened a purple look (MAC Haux and Cranberry) with Crave, and used Venus as a highlight.
For an elegant no-makeup look, use Foxy on your center and outer lid, Venus on the inner third including the corner, blend Naked 2 in your crease, and softly line with Faint.
The possibilities are endless.
I haven’t tried Naked Basics 2; as I said before, cool toned shadows aren’t flattering on me, but you cooler toned folks may find it as amazing as I find NB1. I use this so much more than my other Naked palettes, and ALWAYS use it to supplement them when I do.
This palette is varied without being overwhelming, and it will actually help you get more wear out of your other eyeshadows. I cannot recommend it highly enough.